arily
glanced at his side to see whether the eagle was not there with the
lightning in his beak. I was nearly speaking Greek to him; but, as I
observed that he understood German, I stated to him in German that
the plums on the road between Jena and Weimar were very good. I had
for so many long winter nights thought over what lofty and profound
things I would say to Goethe, if ever I saw him. And when I saw him
at last, I said to him, that the Saxon plums were very good! And
Goethe smiled."

During the next few years Heine produced the most popular of all his
works--those which have won him his place as the greatest of living
German poets and humorists. Between 1826 and 1829 appeared the four
volumes of the "Reisebilder" (Pictures of Travel) and the "Buch der
Lieder" (Book of Songs), a volume of lyrics, of which it is hard to say
whether their greatest charm is the lightness and finish of their style,
their vivid and original imaginativeness, or their simple, pure
sensibility. In his "Reisebilder" Heine carries us with him to the
Hartz, to the isle of Norderney, to his native town Dusseldorf, to Italy,
and to England, sketching scenery and character, now with the wildest,
most fantastic humor, now with the finest idyllic sensibility--letting
his thoughts wander from poetry to politics, from criticism to dreamy
reverie, and blending fun, imagination, reflection, and satire in a sort
of exquisite, ever-varying shimmer, like the hues of the opal.

Heine's journey to England did not at all heighten his regard for the
English. He calls our language the "hiss of egoism (_Zischlaute des
Egoismus_); and his ridicule of English awkwardness is as merciless
as--English ridicule of German awkwardness. His antipathy toward us
seems to have grown in intensity, like many of his other antipathies; and
in his "Vermischte Schriften" he is more bitter than ever. Let us quote
one of his philippics, since bitters are understood to be wholesome:

"It is certainly a frightful injustice to pronounce sentence of
condemnation on an entire people. But with regard to the English,
momentary disgust might betray me into this injustice; and on looking
at the mass I easily forget the many brave and noble men who
distinguished themselves by intellect and love of freedom. But
these, especially the British poets, were always all the more
glaringly in contrast with the rest of the nat